How Catholics Understand the Communion of Saints

• Saint comes from “sanctified,” (Latin, sanctus, Greek, hagios) which means “made holy by God.”

• “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the holy ones and faithful brothers in Christ in Colossae: grace to you and peace from God our Father” (Eph 1:1-2).

• “Greet every saint in Christ Jesus. The brethren who are with me greet you” (Phil 4:21).

• “To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours…” (1 Cor 1:2).

• Concordance of RSV. Used in Acts, Romans, and 1 & 2 Corinthians.

• God gives different people different gifts. He does not take those gifts away from us after death. Cf. Moses and Elijah talking to Jesus in the Transfiguration. They are after death who they were before death: Moses, the great giver of the Law (Torah), and Elijah, the prophet whom Jews still expect to come back from Heaven to anoint the Messiah.

• “That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the bush, when he called 'Lord' the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive” (Lk 20:37-8).
• From EWTN:
• James 5:16b “the fervent prayer of a righteous man is very powerful.”
• “When he took it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each of the elders held a harp and gold bowls filled with incense, which are the prayers of the holy ones” (Rev 5:8). “Another angel came and stood at the altar, holding a gold censer. He was given a great quantity of incense to offer, along with the prayers of all the holy ones, on the gold altar that was before the throne. The smoke of the incense rose with the prayers of the saints from the hand of the angel before God” (Rev. 8:3-4).
• The role of angels in prayer is taught explicitly in the Jewish book of Tobit (Tob. 12:12), which was accepted by Christians as inspired until Luther rejected some of the Jewish scriptures on his own authority. It remains part of the Catholic Bible. “I can now tell you that when you, Tobit, and Sarah prayed, it was I who presented and read the record of your prayer before the Glory of the Lord; and I did the same thing when you used to bury the dead” (Tobit 12:12; note that God pays attention to our good works).
• We are members of one Body. The part of the Body that is on this side of death cannot say that it does not need the part of the Body that is on the other side of death.

• We know that the saints are creatures, not the Creator. We know that they are “sinners redeemed by grace.” We worship God alone; we honor what He has done in the members of the Body of Christ.

• God shares His glory with the saints–especially those who take up their cross and earn the crown of martyrdom.

• Cf. rewards in Revelation 2-3.

• “By your stubbornness and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself for the day of wrath and revelation of the just judgment of God, who will repay everyone according to his works: [We are judged by our WORKS!] eternal life to those who seek glory, honor, and immortality through perseverance in good works, but wrath and fury to those who selfishly disobey the truth and obey wickedness. Yes, affliction and distress will come upon every human being who does evil, Jew first and then Greek. But there will be glory, honor, and peace for everyone who does good, Jew first and then Greek” (Rom 2:5-10).

• “Honor thy father and thy mother.” Honoring the excellence of others does not take any glory away from God.

• Degrees of glory. Jesus encourages us to want to be great in His Kingdom.

• Paul says that we will judge the world: “Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? If the world is judged by you, are you not competent to constitute the smalles

law courts?” (1 Cor 6:2).

• The saints in Heaven intercede for those who are suffering on earth. Vision in the book of Revelation.

• Matthew's story of people being raised from the dead on Easter and testifying to others about Jesus. The saints are alive and active now. “God is the God of the living.”

• “The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised” (Mt 27:52).

• Mark 2: Seeing the faith of the four men who broke through the roof to bring a paralytic to Jesus, Jesus said to the man, “Your sins are forgiven.”

• The saints show us how to follow Jesus. Paul: “Imitate me as I imitate Christ” (1 Cor 11:1)

• Canonization means placing the saints on a list of people whom we venerate. Only God can make people holy. The Church's action of listing (“canonizing”) saints comes after God has transformed them into masterpieces of grace.

• It is not either-or. God acts so that we can act.

• The only reason Mary was not a sinner like us was that she was redeemed by Her Son's death on the Cross at the moment of her conception. That is what is “Immaculate” about the “Immaculate Conception.” We celebrate the Immaculate Conception of Mary within her mother's womb on December 8 and then celebrate her birthday nine months later–September 8. “Immaculate” means “without sin,” not “without sex.”